In modern minimum-invasive surgery, surgical instruments with TFT construction design are increasingly employed, where RF electrodes are subjected to an RF current in monopolar or bipolar arrangement, in order to cut and/or weld/seal an organ tissue. In order to keep the access channel for the surgical instrument as small as possible, and nevertheless to permit a sufficiently good view of the operation location, it is important to keep the operation location as clean as possible and free from tissue particles and/or blood. In this respect, the flushing of the operation location, in particular with minimum-invasive surgical technology, is gaining increasingly in importance.